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Jimmy Page & Robert Plant

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Walking Into Clarksdale

Blue Train Burning Up Shining In The Light House Of Love Most High Heart In Your Hand Upon A Golden Horse Walking Into Clarksdale Sons Of Freedom Please Read The Letter When The World Was Young When I Was A Child

No Quarter

Nobody's Fault But Mine No Quarter Kashmir Friends Wonderful One Since I've Been Loving You Thank You That's The Way Four Sticks Yallah Gallows Pole The Battle Of Evermore City Don't Cry

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Jimmy Page & Robert Plant Biography

"Walking Into Clarksdale"

"When we first got back together, it was so immediately apparent that the two of us were just channeling the music. That's what we had always had, and it was so apparent that it was there. It was amost effortless. It was undeniable, and it was something not to be abused." - Jimmy Page

"I'd seen so many artists from way back who had come together again, and the outcome was almost so pedestrian, almost just an excuse for leaving the house. Whatever we were to do had to be very positive, and full of intention." - Robert Plant

When Jimmy Page and Robert Plant reunited in 1994 for their first full-blown project together since the break-up of Led Zeppelin in 1980, it was to be no mere trot round the block for old time's sake. It was a musical extravaganza that reinvigorated the past and blazed a trail to the future. Not only was their vision undimmed, but their artistic horizon, if anything, had broadened over the years.

Starting with a live MTV special titled Unledded, what might have been a tentative return to collaboration became a triumph captured both on videotape and on the album, "NO QUARTER." Such Led Zeppelin songs as "Gallows Pole" and "Kashmir," whose original studio versions had hitherto seemed definitive, were stunningly rearranged to present a thrilling new face, while four new songs inspired by North African rhythms took a bow.

One ground-breaking world tour later in America, the most successful of 1995 Page & Plant have cemented their reunion by going back into the studio. What emerges this spring is "WALKING INTO CLARKSDALE," their first collection together of all-new original material since 1979 and the release of Led Zeppelin's last studio album, "IN THROUGH THE OUT DOOR."

Yet at no stage was their continued reunion inevitable. Robert Plant recalls 1994's tentative first steps, when the two of them had to discover if they could still spark musically without combusting personally: "We had to decide how comfortable we could make it.There had been a lot of stuff flying around between us, and most of it was coming from my adamance not to have anything to do with a Led Zeppelin rerun. I'd missed Jimmy's playing so much that as soon as we started working, I realized that we'd wasted quite a bit of time. Working in that old room down in King's Cross, it really started sparkling again, but it took until halfway through that world tour to realize that we were really happening, and if we wanted to really enjoy ourselves musically, we had to put our backs into what we were doing."

And so it proved... Page & Plant's "reunion" was one of prodigious logistic and aesthetic ambition. On stage, Jimmy and Robert were joined by the core rhythm section of bassist Charlie Jones and drummer Michael Lee, plus Ed Shearmur (keyboards), Porl Thompson (guitar, banjo), Nigel Eaton (hurdy-gurdy), an eight-member Egyptian ensemble, and locally recruited string sections. "It was a community, with all the ups and downs a community has "Peyton Place" gone wild!" Robert recalls. "You really were in a small moving caravan. If we had done it as a four-piece, we probably wouldn't be here now. We really had to hone our personalities and our expectations to this creature that we'd created; there was no slouching. It was so exciting, a dream come true, which neither of us could have created without the other."

By the tour's triumphant climax and sad farewells, Jimmy and Robert were confident in their renewed relationship and raring to return to the studio as soon as possible. Further inspired by recent individual travels abroad Jimmy to northern Brazil, Robert to the Silk Road of Central Asia they reconvened the rhythmic center of the live band, drummer Michael Lee and bassist Charlie Jones, and headed into London's Abbey Road Studios, whose walls have resounded over the years to some of the world's greatest music.

Enter a completely unexpected wild card: Steve Albini. Famed for his work recording Nirvana, Polly Harvey, Bush, The Pixies, and his own Big Black/Rapeman/Shellac, he was perhaps the least obvious collaborator for Jimmy Page, a man renowned for knowing his own mind in the studio. "The greatest problem for a band that plays organically is someone to record it," Jimmy explains. "Steve Albini really knows how to EQ using microphones, the old science of recording. Plus it's been really wonderful working at Abbey Road. Everything sounded so good."

The album soon to be dubbed "WALKING INTO CLARKSDALE" took just 35 days to record. Jimmy and Robert were keen to capture all the flavors that go into their globally eclectic songwriting style, without overcooking the actual recording process, and so losing the spirit of spontaneous invention. Listen closely and you'll hear an incredible spectrum of inspiration, from the Santo & Johnny, Dick Dale and Ventures surf-guitar twang of "Heart In Your Hand" to the Roy Orbison"s-just-met-Jerry Garcia stylings of "Please Read The Letter."

Among those on Jimmy and Robert's personal playlists during the creation of "WALKING INTO CLARKSDALE" were the British world dance outfit Trans Global Underground, the Sikh drummer troupe The Dhol Foundation, Anglo-Arabic chanteuse Natasha Atlas and the late Jeff Buckley, who Jimmy and Robert had visited to express their admiration in the year before he died. As ever, Jimmy and Robert, who first got together 30 years ago to share an enthusiasm for Joan Baez and Howlin' Wolf, remain true-blue music fans.

The next step? To follow where the music takes them. Fiercely proud of their records, Page and Plant have always regarded the music that comes out of the studio as the starting point of a musical journey, not an ending. As Jimmy says: "All the way through from Zeppelin, when a song went into the set on stage, that was just the beginning. It would change, and I'm looking forward to that on these numbers. We'll be doing some Led Zeppelin numbers, but we'll also be doing a good percentage of "WALKING INTO CLARKSDALE" as well. That's what is so exciting about going on the road seeing how songs evolve from their embryonic state on the record. That's the beauty of the thing."

That beautiful evolution starts right here. Play on!

3/98

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